Ronald Sturgess was working two jobs and helping to care for his family, and when he needed to address legal matters, he didn’t have a lot of time or extra money to consult lawyers.
The new self-help Legal Clinic at Governors State University made it much easier. And it was free.
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“It’s hard enough just making it through life without trying to figure out some new thing,” said Sturgess, an adjunct professor in Independent Film & Digital Imaging at GSU.
The Legal Clinic has been in the works for a year and opened in June, filling a need for people living near Governors State’s University Park campus and surrounding areas. It is temporarily housed in GSU’s library, though the plan is to move the service into a new building this is being constructed later this year.
It is a self-help clinic but is staffed to help walk people through the tools available there, such as law books and online resources. The clinic is open from noon until 6 p.m. Fridays and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturdays.
The clinic was the vision of GSU President Cheryl Green, who at started a similar one at a previous job. Phyllis West, director of the university’s Social Justice Initiative, helped found the clinic and oversees it.
Attorney Vince Jones is the clinic’s co-director and attorneys Deadra Stokes and Carshena Ross staff the clinic along with several social workers.
Sturgess consulted with Stokes and Ross when he needed help setting up trusts for two of his brothers who have special needs and are in nursing homes. A third brother who also was in a nursing facility died in 2021 after breaking his leg and later contracting COVID-19 in another facility.
Sturgess sued the nursing home where his brother broke his leg for neglect, and the state concurred. He wanted to use the money from the lawsuit for a trust to take care of his two remaining brothers without risking their Social Security benefits.
Their home “provides for them pretty decently, but if I wanted to take them on vacation, I couldn’t afford it,” said Sturgess, who lives with his wife, Jeanetta, in Olympia Fields. “I’m trying to create a line of succession.”
He said his mom, 76, who has dementia, had a “gigantic plan” to build a ranch so her kids could be there on their own. His dad died at 87 in 2021 in a nursing home.
Sturgess went with his wife to the clinic. Attorneys Ross and Stokes spent close to an hour and a half helping them, looking up his family’s information online, including case numbers, and explaining about going to probate court, opening a probate account and bank account for the trust money.
“It got me so much further than I would have if I had to set up an appointment with a lawyer who gave me a 30-minute consultation and kicked me out the door,” Sturgess said. “The law is a complicated process. You’ve got to have a guide, you’ve got to have somebody to point you in the right direction at least, if not hold your hand.
“It was one of the most helpful, informative talks I’ve ever had with a lawyer.”
West, the clinic founder and a social worker, said the region needed a free legal clinic, being in one of 10 villages or cities in Illinois with a population of 10,000 or more where the majority of people live below the poverty line. Six of those areas, she said, are in the south suburbs, in the vicinity of the university.
“We find the poorer the communities are, the less likely they are to have access to legal services,” West said. “That includes our students and people in the community — because 80% of our students who graduate stay in the area as well.”
The clinic serves low-income people in South Suburban Cook County, Will County and Kankakee County. It is partnering with Cabrini Green Legal Aid and the South Suburban Housing Center.
People are already calling for help in family law, housing, immigration and expungement.
The clinic held a workshop on expungement and plans to hold another in the fall, as well as a workshop on housing for renters and homeowner rights Aug. 3. West said the clinic’s greatest need is pro bono attorneys who handle immigration and expungement.
“I’ve been a social worker for over 33 years and I’ve worked with a lot of people who are challenged in all the areas we are talking about,” West said. “I just think that legal services should be accessible to all.”
More information on the clinic is at https://www.govst.edu/legalclinic/.